Testimony
When I was a small child, we went to my grandmother’s house often. She lived in Vancouver. I spent much of my summers there. My mom was a Women’s Libber as they were called in the late 60s and early 70s. Both my mom and grandma were involved in Eastern religions. There was a large East Indian population in Canada, particularly Vancouver at that time. Both mom and grandma were a part of the large group in Vancouver.
We lived in LA. One day, on one of our visited to the laundry mat, my brother, who was 4, and I who was 6 went next door to talk to the Barber at the Barbershop right next door. He had a man in the chair and was cutting and shaving the guy and talking to us all at the same time. There were a few people sitting waiting and everyone was involved in the conversation. It was always fun, lots of laughter and the things they talked about, I had never heard so it was always fun to be there.
“Oh, here comes the Bible Thumper”
“Bible Thumper?” I asked
“Yes, you’ll see, he talks about the bible.”
So, in he walked. He greeted everyone and then asked my brother and me if we had heard about Jesus.
We looked at each other and shook our heads No.
“Jesus is God’s son and he died on a cross for your sins, the things you do wrong. He made a way for you to be close to God. Would you like to ask Jesus in your heart?”
I said yes and did, said the sinner’s prayer and my brother refused.
We kept going to the Hindu churches while in Vancouver or any Eastern church similar, but we were not part of a sect. Our religion was following was pretty loose unless we were in Canada. I ran into a several different Christian churches while I was growing up, we had a bible school bus come and get us for church in the morning, I went to a 7th Day Adventist Church on Saturdays while we had different neighbors. I was then invited for lunch and to watch the Shirley Temple movie at 1 0’clock, which I loved.
Our family wasn’t very religious. My mom and my stepdad, when he was around, were not that interested in living Hinduism strictly. The special Swami always stayed at my grandma’s house as she had a huge rooming house and the Swami and his assistant Swami who was his Swamiji were nice and kind.
When I was about 16, they came to our house in Portland and offered to Baptise us into Hinduism. I had not been faithful to Christ at that point. I had been praying my prayer beads 50x a day. The prayer beads were much like a rosary, a necklace of carved wood and I had a special mantra that was for me, the Swami said, so that’s what I prayed. Over and over for almost 2 weeks. I got so sick I almost died. Somehow, I knew it was due to the prayer beads. My throat started to close up in the middle of the night. I had no allergies, although that is a good guess. We were in a motel and I kept drinking the hottest water I could out of the tap so I could still breathe. I don’t know why I didn’t tell my mom, but I just did what I did. We weren’t all that close and she wasn’t extremely nurturing. After that, I stopped praying the prayer beads. I knew something was wrong with them.
There they were, Swami and Swamiji and they offered to Baptise us. I did not want to be Baptized as a Hindu. I wasn’t convinced that was the right direction for me to go after the throat closing incident. My brother decided to get baptized. They went in his room and my grandma and I remained in the kitchen.
“Get it off me, I want it off me!” My brother was shouting. He repeated the same thing several times and was crying, emphatically, “Get it off me, I want it off me! I don’t want it on me!”
I didn’t know what to do, but I thought how glad I was that I didn’t do that. I knew it was a wicked deceptive power. I engaged in forms of darkness, astrology, mainly, I was learning to read charts, but dabbled in other forms, such as tarot cards.
When I was 18, I had a friend who went to a Presbyterian Church. She told me they had prophecies at church.
“Prophecy? What’s a prophecy?”
“That’s where God talks through people.”
“What? What does He say?”
She’d tell me snippets, but I wanted to hear more. “God said, “You are in this world, not of this world” and one time, we were supposed to write down our prayer requests on a piece of paper and put them in the center of the room and then pray and Muriel had a word, “There is a young girl who is praying for a husband. Would you have him when he’s not ready?””
So, I wanted to hear the prophecies myself.
I went to the Vendanta Society, which was similar to Hindu in philosophies, in the morning and decided to go to the Presbyterian church in the evening. It was a prayer time. The chairs were set up in a circle, relatively small bunch, and people turned their backs to the center and prayed on their own and I saw Jesus’ feet. I knew I was at the throne of God. That moment changed me and I have never looked back.
I went to the Sunday morning service next week. It was communion service and the pastor preached on not taking communion unworthily. He said if you take it and you keep sinning then you are taking it unworthily and some people get sick and can even die. So, I decided I wasn’t going to take it because I didn’t want to take it unworthily. We were supposed to take the bread, that the elders brought to the end of each pew and my mom said, “Why didn’t you take any?”
I didn’t want to explain it to her and I decided I was going to the bathroom until communion was over. There happened to be a girl I knew from school in there and we just talked, first about how we didn’t want to take communion and then other things. When I cam back upstairs, my friend said, “Did you take communion?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to take it unworthily.”
“She had a word of prophecy for you. The pastor’s wife.”
“No, it wasn’t for me or I would’ve heard it.”
“It was. It was for you! She said there’s someone with the fear of Satan and unclean things, drink the communion wine and that fear will be gone.”
My mom came and joined the conversation and agreed, the word was for me.
They talked me into going to talk to the preacher’s wife.
So, I explained to her how I didn’t want to take communion unworthily and she said that if I make a mistake, I just get back up and try again.
There we three sat in a tiny circle, the Pastor, my friend and myself. They brought a small piece of bread that was broken into 3 pieces and one of those tiny little cups smaller than a shot glass. I took my 1/3 portion of the bread. They gave me that little cup and it had grape juice in it.
I said to myself, “They already had communion, so I’m drinking this whole thing. I’m not sharing it.”
I drank and drank and drank, this was like I was taking big gulps in a large glass and drank and drank and drank until I couldn’t drink anymore. I pulled the glass away from my mouth and looked at it and it still had some in it. We were all amazed. Then, Cynthia drank a small sip and she passed it to the Pastor. He drank and drank and drank and drank, same thing as I had just done. Same exact thing. And he pulled it away from his mouth to look at it and we all looked at each other.
This time, I thought, I’m drinking the rest of this, this is unbelievable. It doesn’t even make sense. So, I put the cup to my mouth and started drinking and drinking and drinking and that thing would not end. I drank big gulps as much as could possibly drink. I pulled it away and there was still a small amount left and Cynthia drank the rest of it.
I never looked back. I’ve been serving the Lord my whole life and my time with Him is deeper and stronger and I learn more how to forgive others the way He has forgiven me and all the other beautiful lessons He teaches me.
LK